“Jesus, realizing they were about to come and drag him away to become king, slipped off to the hills alone” (John 6.15).
Full tummies, I suppose, translate into votes. At least, they did in this case. You know the story, Jesus and the Disciples are by themselves when this great crowd appears. Philip says it would take at least a week’s wages to feed this many people; yet, for some reason, Jesus doesn’t want them all to go home hungry.
So with five loaves and two fish, Jesus feeds all these people—some five thousand of them. And maybe it was the fact of being fed or the story of the wonder he’d worked that day, but those present decide that Jesus should be their king.
We’re told that Jesus perceives this desire. There’s nothing supernatural about this, I don’t think. This many people, gathered together, whispering to one another, looking at Jesus out of the corners of their eyes, a certain tension in the air. Yeah, Jesus realizes it’s time to beat feet for the hills, disappear for a little while.
But the why of the crowd is important. They were ready, then and there, to make him their king—to put a robe on his shoulders, a scepter in his hand, and a crown on his head. And, why? Not because of what he had said or the example of his life, but because of what he’d given them. They’d been hungry and he’d fed them.
This is how we humans often choose leaders, isn’t it? There’s a hunger, a need within us that is often undefined. Then someone appears who says they can fill that hunger, that desire whether it be bread and fish or the promise of better days or revenge on those who we feel wronged us, and we make them our king, our prime minister, our president.
The kingship the people wanted to crown Jesus with was a tenuous one. It would be a rule that would have made him subject to the people rather than them following him. It would be a reign build upon the lowest, basest desires rather than upon what truly satisfied—the love and relationship between ourselves and others and us and God.
It brings us again to the question what kind of monarch, what kind of leader are we looking for when we declare Jesus the king of kings? Are we wanting someone who meets our hunger for the temporary, for what will satisfy us in this present moment? Do we long for someone who will put things back as they were? Do we expect a ruler who will trample our enemies beneath our feet? A leader who will meet our every need while we sit on the grass in the sun?
Or are we looking for one who will lead us to a place that puts love and selflessness above our immediate hunger? Are we daring to following the One who will encourage us to share as much or as little as we have?
Someone who points the way forward, into the unknown?
Jesus, you came to show us a new way, a way so new and different that, often, it can be tempting to cling to what we know than what you promise. Challenge us to seek first the world you described than the one we can too often desire.